NAIGSO-AA 2018 Summer Solstice Edition

NAIGSO-AA 2018 Summer Solstice Edition

Native American Indian General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous PO Box 838

Rogersville, AL 35652 256-762-0329

"Da neh' dih ne swa d"h'ni go a ahk' ne swa yahdi as dyeh, d1a gwah sho nehuh a swan'nyah saas da kuh ne da yo deh's is ae swa d*h'dah da'no aak ne'kuh yagoh'heh'goh, neh huh."

"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life."

What are you thinking? And what is your reasoning? Does it affect the way you feel? Or does it affect your relationships with others, to yourself, or with the Creator? The South direction (stone #11) is the direction of emotions and relationships, probably one of the most complex things we deal with daily. Perhaps this is why the South direction is represented by 3 different totem animals; O'so:on, the turkey representing unselfishness by giving us its meat for food and feathers for beauty, No'gwat'gwai:h, the fox , the cautious, untrusting one, and Hono'tha:ye:nih, the wolf, loyal, loving, family structured and courageous to defend what he loves. The wolf is the animal usually associated with this direction by men, while the turkey is used more frequently by women. The color of the South is usually yellow but can also be green, although I use red according as I was taught. I know some other tribes who use blue. It is up to you as to how you wish to represent this path. The time of year is summer when life is flourishing and in full swing. The time of day is afternoon. The time of life is adulthood when our vision has been impaired by the influences of this world and of men. We have established relationships not like those of children. (Hadik'sha wakon). Children are considered "sacred little beings" because their spirits have not yet been corrupted by the ways of this world and man. They are innocent and full of love and wonder. The totem mineral of the South is serpentine which has a greasy or waxy texture, usually variations of green but can also be yellow, black, brown, white, or combinations of these colors. It is thought to heal the bite of a serpent, thus its name...but don't try this! It is said to stimulate one's energy, ease fears, encourage trust, and might help you prepare for love. It is also said to enhance visionary gifts and increases the desire for intimacy.

The totem plant of the South is sage, a plant regarded as sacred by many indigenous people around the world. Native Americans use it ceremonially to smudge objects and people before using the objects or engaging in ceremony. The purpose of smudging with sage is for cleansing self of negative spirits and transforming ones' energy. It is important to note when you are about to participate in any Native American ceremony you must cleanse yourself of negative emotions, anger, resentments of others who may also be present, or any other negativity which may poison the energy of the ceremony. So, when you smudge, be sure to cover everything that may be a burden to you or an encumbrance to others before you start. This includes before going into the Medicine Wheel. If you carry bad

energy into the MW with the intent to harm another, it will come back on you and not upon the intended victim or enemy. Sage is a prolific plant and is easily grown in most parts of the country although some varieties may not fare well in certain climates. Some people have preferences and will only use certain types of sage, I obtain whatever is available in the region I am doing a ceremony. I just feel it is native to the area and therefore should be used for healing its own homelands.

The element of the South is water, (o'neganos) represented by the Frog, Sko:ak' and is sacred to nearly every indigenous people on our planet to my knowledge. Water is the giver of life, it is soothing to the touch and refreshes our bodies and directly refreshes our spirit. Water, like relationships and emotions, is always changing and can come as a liquid, solid, or gas. As a liquid we can see it move this way or that as it encounters all manner of obstacles in its path. But as a solid it can break under pressure because it is too rigid and cold. And as a gas, it is transient and impermanent and destined to return as rain or snow. Water and the South direction reminds us that, in our emotions and relationships, we must be sometimes fluid and flexible, other times firm and rigid in our convictions, and at other times transient and impermanent in unhealthy relationships, or in giving too much power over to one emotional extreme or another for too long a time.

The Spirit keeper of the South belongs to the Frog clan, Sko:ak.

The frog is a mysterious creature transforming from an egg to a water breathing, gilled tadpole, to something in between, and then to an air breathing adult amphibian. The Spirit keeper of the South reminds us that our emotions and relationships are like the frog; they metamorphose from one thing to another. It is neither good nor bad, but a process in becoming exactly the creature the Creator had intended us to be. The frog teaches us about transformation, mystery, joy, evolution, and the value of communication.

Our relationships and emotions can be influenced by our physical condition of the North, or the way we think in our mind or intellect of the East. This is why I start each direction with a reminder to take you back to where you have just been in an effort to help us realize we are where we are as a result of where we have been. And sometimes that is not a good place! "Gega'hath'was!" Turn it over!....God's Peace.....Ush`ka Waso'

What Are These Burdens?

Feeling, emotions, relationships?....YUCK! Who on Mother Earth wants to deal with these things? Those of us alcoholics and addicts know how we dealt with them. Oh yeah... We just drowned them or ran from them and continued to float down the river of Denial. The very thought of us meeting our feelings and emotions was terrifying to us. And, how does one have a healthy relationship with anyone or anything? Whether it be a family member, a lover, a boss, a pet dog or cat, respect for the planet on which we depend on everything to survive, and certainly our relationship with Ho`ye Nok'ta, our Creator, what is the remedy?

It seems to me that, when I overcame my fear, I was set free to be that which the Creator intended me to be and continue to become. For most of my life I lived in fear and I hid away in alcohol and drugs. I got nowhere and achieved nothing but the minimum required of me. I was afraid of judgement, persecution, condemnation, rejection, and of being alone and lonely. The answer for me was to be quiet, conform to societal norms even when I vehemently opposed their ideologies, and just fade into the background. But even this did not make the feelings and emotions go away. The alcohol and drugs just made things worse. I retreated from life and decided my best option was to end my life. I couldn't even do that right! Yep! I had to overcome my fears. But how?

Rigorous honesty is a good start in identifying what these fears are and whether they are real or imagined. Unless we go back to our 4th step inventory and recognize our part in this drama of life we won't be able to honestly assess our accountability and liabilities. If we have done this step well it will reveal many 6th step character defects and probably many behaviors that are less than glamorous. The south direction is about steps 7, 8, and 9, and these are action steps that require the H.O.W. of the A.A. program. The 12 & 12 is very frankly explicit about the problem on page 71; "...our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility." So how can one be honest if that one is not humble enough to admit there actually is a problem? Then on page 72 it reminds us of being open-minded to the possibility of God; "For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible." This is the place where we rationalize and justify that our actions, drunk or sober, were really not so bad or harmful. Who needs God? On the previous page 70 it states; "...humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.'s twelve steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all." This requires the willingness to admit we were exactly as step 1 taught us; "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable."

So, how does that help us alleviate our fears? Let's look at that word on page 72; "faith". If we look into the Big Book on page 68 it is a simple declaration of power, "We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of ages is that faith means courage. All men (people) of faith have courage." Wow!

For many of us Native Americans, we resist the A.A. program because we attribute its design to the white man, our oppressors throughout the ages. Yet in this paragraph, it uses the terms "Creator", "courage" and "spirituality", terms our relatives are familiar with. In this paragraph alone, the program sets all of us, red, white yellow, or black, free of religious, political, or racial biases. This extends the open-minded conviction of step 3 to everyone on the planet; "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him (God)."

That being declared, we have to seriously ask ourselves what do we have to fear? Now there is no legitimate excuse for us to excuse ourselves from being clean and sober. The logic is that all people of faith have courage. Therefore, people of no faith remain in fear of people, places, things, substances, opportunity, responsibility, accountability, and success. Personally, I didn't like it in that dark realm of the spirit. I wanted to be free. If I were to be free, I had to own all the dirt of my past and to take back the power I was given by my Hot`ye Nok'ta, as I understand It. I had to find my courage to do that through my personal faith in my personal Creator, and then offer It to you. Facing my fears meant I no longer had to submit to those things that this world attempted, and often succeeded, to impose upon me. It also meant that whatever demons there were in my past, whatever had been done to me by others and by myself, had to be first forgiven, then used to make me stronger; stronger in faith to walk my personal spiritual path, whether you agreed with me or not. It was still my path.

If you so choose, you can walk this path too. Or, you can walk the path personally designed for you by our Creator as you understand It. The only requirement of freedom is that you not harm anyone or any living thing except for necessity of food or basic needs as you walk that path. I recently made a decision to publish three books I have been working on for thirteen years. The first one many who have read this newsletter have been exposed to in part; "Teaching the Way of the Medicine Wheel", which describes how to construct a 36stone Medicine Wheel as I was taught by my teacher Joe Whitefeather, now in the Spirit World. It is written as a way to encourage all my relatives on a path of recovery and finding balance of the seven directions and the four elements of the human condition. It is simply

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